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Majority Of Americans Doubt The Big Bang Theory, New Poll Says

By Kamal Nayan | Update Date: Apr 22, 2014 09:01 AM EDT

Around 51 percent of Americans question the Big Bang theory's validity, according to a new poll by GfK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. In the poll conducted, about 30 percent of Americans were convinced about the Big Bang. Other half of the participants responded that they were "not at all confident" or "not too confident" in the accuracy of the theory. 

Big Bang theory states that the universe originated from an infinitely dense singularity 13.82 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since its formation. 

The Associated Press poll found that only 4 percent of Americans doubted that smoking caused cancer. Six percent question whether mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain. 

The AP poll also revealed that around 8 percent of citizens quibble with the findings that we carry genetic codes inside our cells. Further more, around 40 percent Americans were found to be unsure or didn't believe in global warming. 

AP mentioned that the results depressed and upset some of America's top scientists. 

"Science ignorance is pervasive in our society and these attitudes are reinforced when some of our leaders are openly antagonistic to established facts," said 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine winner Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley, according to NY Daily News.

Interestingly, the poll also found that political values were closely tied to views on science in the poll. Democrats were more apt than Republicans in expressing confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, age of Earth and climate change. 

"When you are putting up facts against faith, facts can't argue against faith," said 2012 Nobel Prize winning biochemistry professor Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University.

"It makes sense now that science would have made no headway because faith is untestable," he added.

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